LittleBIGPhysics: Investigating the Laws of LBP2

I suppose this is a bit of a different kind of "project" compared to most other things on this board, but it's the most appropriate I've been able to find, at least. In any case:

The Idea
Since one of the pillars of LBP is creating, I figured that getting back into LBP meant I should try out some kind of creative venture again. I wanted to try out something that might involve actual interaction with people, instead of just spending hours on a level to send out into the aether, so I figured I could put together something of a video series, on the optimistic assumption that videos in LBP2 still have an audience.

The idea's this: I remember once hearing somebody praise the details of LBP's physics years ago, saying it had some unexpected details. Bad physics can really make a game not worth playing (or worth playing for all the wrong reasons), so I wanted to make something of a tribute to the intricacy of LBP's physics by examining it up close to identify and appreciate its details.

This means taking something of an experimental approach, using the in-game logic to create instruments that can produce measurements to model the physical behaviour of objects. I don't clutter it much with math, since that'd make it less accessible, but I try to be transparent about when I'm using it to let people know what's going on. I wait until pertinent aspects of logic come up to explain, which will only mean getting into really complicated stuff if necessary (and many here know it has no upper bounds on how complicated it can get - this stuff can get into calculus, not that I intend to do that).

I realize I'm probably catering to a pretty small crowd by this point with how small the LBP community has shrunk (as promising as future prospects are for Dreams), but I'd love to hear any thoughts anybody has on what could be worked on. I'm currently considering making some smaller episodes as well, just a few minutes long, to deal with miscellaneous things like density or how long one unit of the grid is in create mode. I'll just have to play around with the format and see what works.

Truth be told, I actually had this video done a week earlier, but a lack of available time to sit down and draw the thumbnail held things back. I even had to settle for a much less interesting graphic than what I originally envisioned, but to be realistic, I might have to make do with simpler thumbnails from now on to remove that limiting factor.

On the brighter side of things, I'll be recording the footage for a bunch of episodes pretty soon, so now would be the best time for any suggestions for things to explore or specific methods to try out, since I'll be able to incorporate them into what I record. I'm planning on making a couple larger episodes and a number of smaller ones to see if a shorter format (for at least some videos, probably not all) works well for easier questions, like how dense different things are.

That having been said, I'll get to work on the next episode, which incorporates what I think is the most interesting measurement tool yet.

Alright, it took a lot longer than I would have liked, since I took some time to record footage for future episodes, and playing with the graphs for this episode took a few hours, but the newest episode's finally here.

As I've discussed previously, I'll be doing some shorter episodes inbetween big ones like this one from this point onwards, to help soften the blow of some episodes taking this long to produce. These big ones are my favourite so far, though, where the analysis gets a bit deeper as we dive further into uncharted territory, so I'll always have a few planned for the future. In any case, next up will be the first of the sweet and small videos, applying a concept we explored in an earlier episode to learn more specific things about the game world.

People have apparently been wondering about the precise sizes of the grid spacings for a while, and though I heard some interesting ideas, I'm quite sure now that I've figured out where it comes from. That being said, I still have no idea why the default range for sensors is 22.4 units, or whatever it happens to be. Not sure what's special about that distance.

Next time will be an alternate method of making a certain kind of measurement, for the sake of showing off some variety and getting back into expanding out toolbox for making observations.

Thanks!

Alright, here's another bigger one: link. I do have to say that this one was pretty fun, though, since it explored some different tools for analyzing data.

I'm actually pretty much out of footage right now, so I guess I'll have to think up how I'm going to tackle the next few ideas I have and get them recorded before I get back to the usual production schedule. Even so, though, I don't think I'll be running out of concepts to explore any time soon - the questions might eventually get a bit more specific, but that'll just make them more practical, anyways.

Thanks!

I can't help but feel that this is long overdue, but I assure you I'm working on these quite frequently. Anything with graphs just takes me quite a long time, unfortunately. Regardless, the newest episode, focusing on what happens when you give something a shove: link.

Thanks!

Okay, I guess I chose the wrong time to do another longer one. A few busy weekends in a row made this take way longer than I would've liked, but rest assured that I always have this series on my to-do list. Trying to make sense of something I did months ago makes this process a lot harder, too, so I'll try to avoid having that happen again.

Until now, we've only ever looked at objects in isolation, and it's about time we start thinking about what happens when things get social and everyone's bumping into each other. Thus, our newest instalment focuses on collisions.

I have to admit that this is turning out a bit more realistic than I had expected. These videos are really making me appreciate some of the finer details of the engine, especially the surprise of air resistance (and by extension varying terminal velocities) being programmed into the game.

Thanks!

Apologies for the delay on this one - I accidentally created the perfect storm of having very little free time and having more editing to do on this video than any others, with the highest ratio of images to footage to date, not to mention a video of decent length. And to think that I was always worried about being delayed by a lack of footage; I've had footage sitting around for months without the time to edit it.

Anyways, here's the newest instalment, taking a closer look at ideas presented in the previous episode and developing the concept of forces from there.